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Related Concept Videos

Mate Choice01:20

Mate Choice

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Mate choice—the decision about whom to mate with—is a type of natural selection, since animals must reproduce to pass down their genes. Mate choice is also called intersexual selection because the behavior occurs between the sexes.
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Natural Selection and Mating Preferences01:06

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The principle of natural selection posits that organisms better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. This principle is closely intertwined with mating preferences, a key aspect of sexual selection, which evolutionary psychologists believe is driven by instincts to propagate one's genes. Such instincts significantly influence mating behaviors and preferences between genders.
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Instinctive drift refers to the tendency of animals to revert to their innate behaviors despite repeated reinforcement. Breland and Breland demonstrated this concept in an experiment with a raccoon. The raccoon was trained to pick up two coins and place them in a container in exchange for food. Initially, the raccoon learned to associate the coins with food, making them a conditioned stimulus or a substitute for food. However, over time, the raccoon became less willing to put the coins into the...
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Types of Selection01:46

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Natural selection influences the frequencies of particular alleles and phenotypes within populations in several different ways. Primarily, natural selection can be directional, stabilizing, or disruptive. Directional selection favors one extreme trait and shifts the population towards that phenotype while selecting against individuals displaying alternate traits. Stabilizing selection favors an intermediate trait with a narrow range of variation. Deviation from the optimal phenotype towards an...
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A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a specific, hard-wired sequence of behaviors that occurs in response to an external stimulus, called a sign stimulus. The behavior is “fixed” because it is essentially unchangeable—proceeding similarly across individuals of a species every time it occurs.
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Frequency-dependent Selection01:21

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When the fitness of a trait is influenced by how common it is (i.e., its frequency) relative to different traits within a population, this is referred to as frequency-dependent selection. Frequency-dependent selection may occur between species or within a single species. This type of selection can either be positive—with more common phenotypes having higher fitness—or negative, with rarer phenotypes conferring increased fitness.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 6, 2025

Exploring Life History Choices: Using Temperature and Substrate Type as Interacting Factors for Blowfly Larval and Female Preferences
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Naïve chicks do not prefer objects with stable body orientation, though they may prefer behavioural variability.

Orsola Rosa-Salva1, Mikołaj Hernik2, Martina Fabbroni3

  • 1CIMeC Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, TN, Italy. orsola.rosasalva@unitn.it.

Animal Cognition
|March 18, 2023
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Summary

Domestic chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) show a preference for agents with unstable front-back orientation, challenging previous assumptions about motion cue detection. This unexpected finding in female chicks suggests a potential attraction to less predictable animate agent behaviors.

Keywords:
AgencyAnimacyBody orientationDomestic chicksInborn social predispositionsVariability

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Area of Science:

  • Animal Behavior
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Domestic chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) are models for studying visual motion cue detection in naive organisms.
  • Previous research indicated chicks prefer agents with aligned body axis and motion direction.
  • Sensitivity to stable front-back body orientation in motion has not been previously studied in chicks.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if domestic chicks discriminate agents based on stable front-back body orientation during motion.
  • To determine if chicks exhibit preferences for agents with consistent or inconsistent front-back orientation.

Main Methods:

  • Testing 300 domestic chicks across three experimental conditions.
  • Presenting agents with varying degrees of front-back orientation stability during motion.
  • Observing and recording chick approach preferences.

Main Results:

  • Contrary to expectations, chicks showed a preference for agents that did not maintain a stable front-back orientation.
  • This preference was specifically observed in female chicks.
  • Chicks can discriminate agents based on the stability of their front-back orientation.

Conclusions:

  • The study reveals chicks' sensitivity to front-back orientation stability in moving agents.
  • The unexpected preference for unstable orientation may indicate attraction to less predictable behaviors.
  • Results suggest potential sex differences in social behavior and animate agent detection in chicks.